Scheduling

I’m an organized person, mostly. But I am easily distracted, and often forget to keep focused. I make endless to-do lists, cross some things off, and then the rest of the items just sit there, never getting done. It’s not that I don’t want to do them, or can’t, or don’t have the time. I just don’t ever make a point of doing them. Inertia kicks in and instead of making that soup for dinner, I watch “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” It’s dumb. (Also, your missing Oxford comma is dumb, Food Network.)

Recently, a friend told me about how she manages her time. She’s the sole employee of a not-for-profit, which means she’s practically self-employed. In addition to scheduling meetings, she schedules tasks. Instead of writing to-do lists, she puts items in her calendar. She gave me an example of a bit of research she’d decided to do, something that might only take a couple hours. So she picked a time a few months ahead, and into her calendar it went. When that day comes around, she’ll do the research. And she does this with tasks she tends to put off, things like emailing or phoning donors. When the task comes up in her schedule, she tackles it.

When I heard this, I was amazed. This is so simple and effective! And yet it hadn’t occurred to me to do it. I felt so dumb!

As soon as I got home from talking to her, I started using my calendar more. I’m getting better at scheduling my days and weeks like this, being sure to include things like grocery shopping, watching movies, and reading. I’m going to keep at it, because it really works. I still have my to-do lists—it’s a hard habit to break. But now seems like a good time to transfer all those tasks into my calendar. Off I go…